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On responding to context
p. 4
On design process & concept development
p. 5
On communicating ideas
p. 16
Résumé
p. 33
Figure 1 – (Left) Conceptual depiction of the philosophy behind adaptive re-use: A shift in perspective and mindset.
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On responding to context Naturally, the act of landscape design is predicated upon the aesthetic preferences of the designer. However, landscape architecture also an empathetic sensitivity to better capture local and oft-hidden nuances. Given that it is from these nuances that the sense of place is formed, interventions in the landscape should be an honest transformation that does not belie a landscape’s history and its accumulated scars. All too often, however, the marks on our landscapes are sanitized in the name of progress, taking away the patina that gives a site character and history.
Figure 2 – Landscapes are layered physically and temporally. A designer’s role is to curate and clarify the significant relationships to express memories and aspirations of a particular place.
The mementos of the passing of time should be celebrated, for a landscape without scars cannot fully tell its stories.
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On design process & concept development Pierce Plaza at Yonge & Sheppard Toronto, Ontario
The realities of contemporary landscape architecture dictate that designers rarely come from the places that they are asked to design. Ideally, any design process should be simple and focused on keeping the designer close to the source material. More importantly the process should have built in flexibilities that allow for serendipitous discoveries. Anchoring my own process is Christophe Girot’s Four Trace Concepts which stresses resolving the intervention through mastering the local qualitative and quantitative characteristics of a landscape. The four stages involve 1) establishing a personal experience with the site, 2) becoming familiar with the layers of context through research and analysis, 3) discovering the unique aspect that drives the landscape’s identity, and 4) formulating a focused reaction based on findings. The following projects showcase my design process. 5
Conestoga College at the Former Guelph Correctional Centre
Pierce Plaza
at Yonge and Sheppard
Location: Toronto, Canada Size: 0.23 ha Type: Plaza Designer: Stuart Chan Course: Landscape Architecture Studio 1 (Semester 1) Time frame: 5 weeks Brief: The south-west corner of Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue is slated to become a plaza and a 20-storey commercial building. The plaza should facilitate ingress and egress for the commercial building and provide social spaces. Context: The neighbourhood of North York in Toronto is undergoing a development boon along the Yonge Street Corridor. Many former surface parking lots and two-floor commercial buildings are being converted into high density residential blocks and office buildings. The Yonge and Sheppard corners are served by two subway lines and multiple bus lines. Lowdensity residential neighbourhoods flank Yonge Street within one to two blocks on either side.
Figure 3 – (Left) Toronto’s ravines (n green) cut through significant parts of the city. Figure 4 – (Top) High-rise developments cluster at Yonge Street’s major intersections. The 60m x 30m site lies at the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue (green box) and is flanked by an upcoming commercial high rise (purple box). Figure 5 – (Above) Looking north, the area consists of boxy high-rises with minimal setbacks from the right-ofway. Figure 6 – (Right) This presents an opportunity to create contrast by diverging from the dominant typology. 6
TTC SUBWAY STATION
SLAB BENCH
SUNKEN BOARDWALK
SEDUM SPP.
TURF MOUND
YONGE STREE T
Gully & Mound Pierce Plaza draws inspiration from Toronto’s ravines system (right). Its organic forms recall the natural legacy of the area while creating contrast from the normative design operation of expansion and extrusion. Instead, this site utilizes peeling and piercing (left) to produce different forms in the public realm. 7
GINKGO BILOBA
LAVANDULA SPP.
WATER FEATURE
SHEPPARD AVE
YONGE ST
Figure 7 – (Top - looking north along Yonge St.) The turf mound features a wooden deck that covers equipment for the water features. To mediate the interface between the right of way, the corner is peeled up to create a visual barrier. A rough rock veneer is used to simulate gully walls and to provide visual foundation for the mound. Street trees (Ginkgo biloba) line the perimeter while other signature trees fill in the plaza. Sedum and lavender plantings provide visual and scent interest. Figure 8 – (Above) Current conditions looking north along Yonge St. Figure 9 – (Right) Three-dimensionally, Pierce Plaza diverges from the norm of “rectangular box on flat plane.”
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SHEPPARD AVE
YONGE ST
Figure 10 – (Top - looking west) The gully is surfaced with a wooden boardwalk that leads to the entrance of the new commercial building. A new subway station entrance is peeled up on this corner, whose roof features a waterfall to create cooling mists in the summer heat. Shale veneers line the walls of the gully walkway to give visual weight to the mound. Figure 11 – (Above) Parking will relocate under the commercial building opening up the public realm. Figure 12 – (Right) The cantilevered roof of the subway station provides weather protection to travellers.
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Conestoga College
at the former Guelph Correctional Centre
Location: Guelph, Canada Size: 91 ha Type: Campus / Adaptive Reuse Designer: Stuart Chan, Anna Chow Course: Community Design (Semester 4) Time frame: 6 weeks Brief: Develop a campus for Conestoga Campus that integrates the heritage buildings of the Guelph Correctional Centre, as well as blending into the developing Guelph Innovation District. Context: The Guelph Correctional Centre (GCC, or known earlier as Ontario Reformatory) was constructed in 1910 and was at the forefront of prison reform in Upper Canada. Its rich history and adjacency to the Eramosa River makes this site prime for redevelopment in the Guelph Innovation District (GID), which is slated for development of high to medium density housing as well as commercial, business, or research areas.
Guelph Lake Ontario
Figure 13 – (Top row) Aerial photographs of the GCC in its current underutilized state show the remaining Beaux Arts style cell blocks and adjacent fields. Figure 14 – (Left) the City of Guelph is Ontario’s agri-business hub. Urban development in Ontario (blue), is often surrounded by agricultural lands. The green belt (green) separates Toronto and neighbouring cities along the shores of Lake Ontario with less dense outlying cities. Figure 15 – (Above) The GCC site is endowed with a river front, stormwater retention ponds and heritage protected architecture and farm fields. 10
Campus Circulation and Infill Proposal MAIN CAMPUS AXES Main Campus COURTYARDS Campus
NATURALIZED AREAS Naturalized
Figure 16 – (Above) Slope analysis (left) and hydrology assessment (right) shows the site is separated into a highland and lowland areas separated by a 5%-to-10% (left, dark). The lowlands are bound by active waterways and wetlands (right, blue dashed line and green circles, respectively). Adjacent to the Eramosa River is an active floodplain (right, orange circles). Figure 17 – (Below) Opportunity for infill lies amongst the non-heritage buildings and in the courtyard of the jail house (green). The floodplain is a deterrent to development (orange), while the jail house and adjacent farmstead is restricted by heritage conservation (yellow). College St. should be extended to provide direct vehicular access to the southern edge (chevrons).
Axes
Greens Area
PAVED FOOTPATHS (PEDESTRIANS Foot & Cycle PathsAND CAMPUS GRID (PEDESTRIANS Campus Grid ,
BICYCLES ONLY)
BICYCLES,
CAMPUS LOCAL STREET (AUTO
& UTILITY VEH
Campus Ring Road
YORK RD)
ACCESS BETWEEN COLLE
COLLEGE ST. EXTENSION AND DUNLOP DRIVE THORO College4St. Extension CORRIDOR)
TRANSIT ROUTE
CAMPUS GATEWAY (YORK RD GATEWAY Campus Gateway BUSBus STOPStop (GUELPH
HERI TAGE CON SERV ATIO N FLOO D
PL AIN
INFIL
TRANSIT ROUTE
NOT ILLUSTRAT
4)
L
LOW RESOURCE PROGRAMS Heritage Block & ADMIN ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING Engineering Block& AGRI-INNOVATION
CO E X LLE T E GE NS S IO T. N
HEALTH & VETERINARIAN PROGRAMS Health Sciences BlockAND MISC.
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Campus Features
BETWEEN BUILDINGS
To balance the addition of 236,000 square metres in campus buildings and retaining the cultural and environmental heritage of the GCC site, the campus adopts a dense and human-scaled layout concentrated on the south-east edge. Campus access and circulation prioritizes active and public transportation while vehicular traffic is pushed to the outside. Between Buildings: Small greens adjacent to the building facade create intimate and meandering paths that distinguish it from the more formal Main Axis. Main Axis: In response to the original architecture, the main axis extends from the heritage buildings to the heart of the campus. This backbone connects the most important buildings and is the main thoroughfare for pedestrians. Campus Green: This is the premier outdoor space of the building complexes. Acer spp. and Quercus spp. dot the green providing shade and frames heritage and modern architecture. Chimney Plaza: Counterbalancing the Campus Green is the Chimney Plaza. Located at the south end of the Main Axis is a hardscape of coloured permeable concrete with seating opportunities along Main St.
MAIN AXIS
CAMPUS GREEN
CHIMNEY PLAZA 13
ACTIVITY CENTRE
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Figure 18 – (Above) The retention ponds are an amenity that goes beyond stormwater management functions. With the all-season activity centre, the retention ponds become the hub for outdoor activity. This allseason facility act as a boathouse for canoes and kayaks in the summer, and as a warming lodge for cross-country skiers during winter. Traditionally, colleges offer little in extra-curricular activities leading to an underutilized campus during offhours. The addition of this outdoor activity centre provides reason to stay and is an attractive amenity to potential students and employees. Furthermore, the activity centre bolsters the campus’s integration with the community and liven up this side of the City of Guelph.
MEMORIAL SPACE
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Figure 19 – Between the former chapel and cell block D is a grid of 56 dwarf spruces. These spruces represent Ontario Reformatory’s juvenile inmates standing at attention. Widely spaced and never touching, these spruces remind the campus community that communal life in prison is often lonely, despite being in close quarters. The singular species and gaps in the grid signify the incompleteness of the prison community. This memorial, together with the adapted reuse of the cell blocks, help tell the story of the place and pays tribute to the hardship that created the structures in the first place.
Quick (p. 17)
Technical (p. 23)
Formal (p.28)
On communicating ideas The linchpin of design is in communicating ideas in an appropriate fashion. Factors like time, audiences’ graphic literacy, and occasion determines the way in which ideas are communicated. Whether to capitalize on an opportunity in a limited time frame or to cater to client expectations, visualizations and communication styles must adapt to suit needs.
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RIVERSIDE PARK: Matching style to audience The rural township of Wingham, Ontario asked my class to provide a quick study on the development opportunities for their riverside park. Given the limited time and limited graphic literacy of the audience, I adopted to use analogue techniques to portray views and experience. This strategy proved useful for the older audience and multiple iterations can be generated quickly. 17
Figure 20 – (Top left) A quick study of opportunities and features of the existing park. Figure 21 – (Top middle and right) 5 minute character sketches of the preserved view looking out towards the dam (middle) and a re-imagined paved and landscaped civic space (right).
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Figure 22 – (Below) The sketch is to provide a quick study of the opportunities of an open shoreline. By opening the bullrush dominated shoreline, opportunities for parkgoers to enjoy the river multiplies. Furthermore, the many willows along the waters edge can now be enjoyed from the bridges.
Figure 23 – (Above) Rural Ontario’s waterways are often polluted by nutrient rich runoff from farmers’ fields. By engineering the riparian zone to host a diverse range of nitrate absorbing species, phytoremediation efforts can double as landscape interest. Above is a view of a visitor looking down from an observation tower at the re-engineered riparian zone.
Figure 24 – (Right) The observation tower can be seen from the riparian edge where parkgoers can hike through. These two sketches were used to illustrate opportunities within the park quickly.
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SLIVER GARDEN: Rapid 3D modelling A friend asked for quick help with his 120-foot by 12-foot backyard in Toronto. Knowing that he likes to barbecue and to spend time reading outside, I suggested that he give himself more entertaining space and to segment the long space into manageable rooms. I quickly developed the idea in SketchUp over night and sent the idea along.
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With the walkout basement sitting at the lowest point in the property, drainage was a big consideration for creating the rain-garden basin. It was also important to make the incredibly long yard feel more manageable, which lead to segmenting the backyard into three zones. 21
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Figure 23 – Grading plan for a lakeside estate in Ontario’s lake country, Muskoka Lakes.
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Figure 24 – Construction details from the grading plan.
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Figure 25 – Planting plan for reforestation of a farmstead.
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Figure 26 – (Opposite Page) Grading and layout for a road and roadside swale. Figure 27 – (Above) Cut and fill plan for a slope-side estate Figure 28 – (Right) Cut and fill balance table
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Figure 29 – This is a planting and grading model for Fischer Cottage, another luxury lakeside estate in the Muskoka Lake region of Ontario. In addition to trees and shrubs, the model shows the three distinct planting zones as depicted by the orange, green, and yellow thread. Figure 30 – (Far left) The ripple effect on the acetate was a happy accident produced from feeding ordinary acetate sheet into a laser printer. The heat from the drum produced the ripples which worked in the model’s favour.
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Figure 31 – Grand Cornell Phase 2 is a greenfield development project in the City of Markham in Ontario. The site accommodates a large woodlot in the centre and scenic stormwater management ponds to process all local runoff. To fulfill the region’s development plans, Grand Cornell Phase 2 features a mixture of high density residential and commercial buildings along Avenue 7 and 362 single-detached and duplex homes in a dense suburban setting. The ideas were presented to the leading landscape architect and developer for consideration.
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Low-Medium Density Residential High Density Residential Mixed Use Commercial / Retail Employment Primary School Park and Open Space Stormwater Management Ponds Protected Natural Area
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Figure 32 – More and more presentations are done using slideshows. Most important aspect of a slideshow is to keeping the audience’s attention. On-screen information needs to be digestible in the short time frame and logical in progression.
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Education
Master in Landscape Architecture
University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada 2012 – 2015
Honours Bachelor of Arts
Environmental Studies & Geography University of Toronto, Ontario Canada 2001 – 2006
Skills
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator Adobe InDesign AutoCAD SketchUp Microsoft Office
Languages
English Cantonese Mandarin
Professional Experience Blackpen Designs
Landscape Designer, 2014 – 2015 (part time) Stuart was a principal designer at Blackpen Designs, a landscape design-build studio started by Stuart and fellow MLA student Sanya Hung. Together with Sanya, Stuart designed and built residential landscapes ranging from 180 sq. ft. boulevards to 5000 sq. ft. front and back yards. The designs featured native and drought resistant plants and a focus on the outdoor experience.
Fiona Rintoul & Associates Landscape Architects
Assistant to Landscape Architect, 2014 – 2015 (part time) Stuart had many roles at the boutique firm in Guelph, Ontario. In addition to rendering planting plans and administrative tasks, Stuart was the lead for the firm’s rebranding and web presence project. By utilizing popular tools, Stuart created a simple and attractive solution for a busy firm.
University of Toronto
Sustainability Coordinator, 2007 – 2012 Stuart managed the University of Toronto Sustainability Office for over five years. Over his tenure, the University achieved energy use reductions via behaviour change projects and collaborative efforts with facilities department. Stuart and his three direct reports fundraised over CAD $250 000 for a variety of environmental projects. 33
Contact Stuart stu.chan@gmail.com https://hk.linkedin.com/in/stuartchanla
The Works of Stuart Chan A Landscape Architecture Portfolio Š 2015